We Jews are living in a strange historical period in which our sense of history is often quite warped. For many American Jews, the Holocaust and Isra… - Irena Klepfisz

there needs to be greater communication between Jewish progressives and the Jewish mainstream, there needs to be an exchange, bartering if you will. If such exchanges do not take place we will still be progressives, but not Jewish progressives...There needs to be among us a greater sense of an exchange between equals rather than between givers and receivers. If this sense of mutual respect does not exist, then we progressives will surely be forever seen as outsiders.

I think my introduction to loving poetry and literature came from Yiddish

Outside of Israel and Russia, we have our own realities, and Yiddish is "The Language That Won't Go Away." I often talk about this longing for Yiddish despite Israel, despite all the Holocaust memorials, despite all the Jewish activities that are part of American Jewish life. There's a lot of feeling about Yiddish both among an older generation and a younger generation that never even got to hear it. As I myself get older, I encounter young students whose parents don't remember Yiddish or never knew it, but perhaps whose grandparents spoke Yiddish. Yiddish for most is increasingly a vague memory. And yet this younger generation has this yearning. It's an interesting phenomenon. What is it that's missing in Jewish American life that makes Jews think that Yiddish could fill a void? Clearly, something is missing. We don't know whether for them Yiddish is the answer or not; something is happening among that generation. What I would like people to think about is why at a time when there's a frenzy about the Holocaust, about memorialization, about interviewing survivors, and so on, there is a rich revival of klezmer music. Is it a desire to focus on the joy that was there before the war?